Easter 2017

The White Tree

In a broken land a tree stood white and barren against the light 

clean and sinuous the dead branches curved through the sky

Graceful elegant dead

Left untouched by all around no nest of any bird to disturb its simplicity.

Clean unhurt by life only the rain casts an occasional grey cloak over the bole of the tree

Graceful dead elegant

No hole of woodpecker no visible sign of decay the white tree changes not with season

winter summer still it stands unmoving in the wind that tears down living trees nearby.

Dead graceful elegant

Dead is the tree dead are its children no seed sprouted under those boughs

dead is the man nailed to that white tree dead is the heart of his mother.

Dead twisted broken

He is taken down,  his blood stains the white tree,  soaking into the dead wood.

The man is taken to a tomb cut from the rock, a stone covers the entrance.

Dead, stained, hurt

The storm rages,  the rain falls, the stain on the tree unwashed,  night passes, day passes, night,

women come to the tomb,  the stone is not blocking it,  the body of the man is gone

Dead, fear, confusion

A crying woman, a man walks from behind the tree, she looks and cries for joy

she runs to find friends,  the man touches the tree, and is gone

Dead? What! How?

The sun falls on the tree, and leaves open to welcome the light,  its graceful shape confused

The foliage scatters the light hiding its elegant form, birds alight on it’s once pristine branches

Living, life-giving, hopefilled.

Mark Ieuan Johnston,  Easter 2017 

For Dad

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace: according to thy word.

For mine eyes have seen: thy salvation,

Which thou hast prepared: before the face of all people;

To be a light to lighten the Gentiles: and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

A study -  a wall of books

A broken chair

What is left?

Photos on an order of service, a wedding here, another there, with children,  with friends 

the same face

old, young,  broken, smiling in life.  Under all a date of ending

a church packed out.

A notice in the local paper, a few paragraphs in the newsletter.  

A harsh bitter illness that lingered on for 15 years all the days he lived in this house,

Slowly all the liveliness and hope squeezed from him.

The final days - the anguished  “I don’t want to get better”

Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?

The care pathway changed   

Less and less he woke, till one morning 

removing all that was left to remind him of his weakness ,

he took a tissue from me, so he could wipe his own face

he sang along to the old welsh hymns and songs, a voice reduced to a breath.

He told the nurse he was in pain again

again morphine took to him to sleep, never to wake

Now I am eldest, no wise head to talk to, to ridicule, to love

No one to ring on a Sunday night

No hug at the end of that awful drive

81 summers and winters had come and gone since that November day

Children and grandchildren,

Grief and joy, hope and despair

Triumphs and disappointments

What remains ?

Some dust,  memories , and a hope

Now at this birth season of decease,

Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,

Grant Israel’s consolation

To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow.

He was heard.

The Nunc Dimittis ,  The Seven last Words from the Cross and TS Elliots Song for Simeon all provided help in putting this together 

In the beginning

The Christian and Jewish scriptures start with the words – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” before the writer goes to describe how he thought God did it and for 4500 year ago I don’t think he did a bad job.

The creation is now revealed after 4,500 years of thought and tests to be even more amazing and immense than the genesis writer could have imagined.  At the beginning of time a singularity exploded and within a few moments all that is, was made.   In the unimaginable violence of the beginning of space and time, matter and antimatter were created in there most fundamental states collided into each other and annihilated themselves eventually a bit more matter was made and became the building blocks of all we see (and perhaps the dark matter we don’t). 

 It took time for the universe to cool enough for protons and electrons  to for hydrogen,  and then  it took even longer for the hydrogen atoms to clump together eventually to form stars,  and it was in the massive  starts  that the other elements were forged, carbo, oxygen, gold. 

These early stars were massive and unstable and took to blowing up scattering their contents all over the universe,  more stars formed  in their wreckage  and eventually enough stuff was made to  build rocking planets and asteroids   and eventually even Sol and her planets came into being and on at least one of them a carbon based life cycle began and evolved until standing on the edge of a tiny rock, spinning round  a small bright star, on the edge of a smallish galaxy  of millions of starts in an infinite  universe of galaxies,  a life form emerged and asked who am I, why am I,  how am I.

That life form had evolved from other creatures but was somehow different – somehow developed art and then in its current form – language and then writing so ideas could be shared and communicated between groups and generations, and then we could post selfies.

In all this, the human species had somewhere in their make up had a God hole - a curiosity that could not be sated and they wrote books about God ,  they wrote books about the world, about maths, about their emotions and they made music. 

A very different picture to the one in genesis, but it is the one that right now I think is right

None of this means I believe in science, because that is a meaningless statement,  the curiosity  of  humans  comes from the God hole  in us, we want to know everything – about the world, about the universe, about God,  each generation learns more, each generation stands on the shoulders of  giants and sees more.  

There are some humans who are afraid of the new, not ready to see the wonders of the creation and lacking knowledge  of  the way things are made, they turn away and  curse the new  and reject the God  but call themselves worshipers, denying the real wonder of the maker, because they don’t understand and they want not to think.  

There are others who see only the physical, the tactile and they raise new gods, themselves, crowing on their own dunghills.   Some of these little gods are kind, others cruel and isolated, but they all see only their own words as true.

Some rejoice in all the new, for in revealing the new of how God did things reveals how wonderful the God is, how amazing the world he gave us is.  These worshippers of the maker seek to discover more about the maker, about the made world, about the made humans. They live in a world of change, of life, of hope, they will go gentle into the next adventure, because they will know that there is so much more to know.  These are the true creationists.